Margins/Marges/Margini

Introduzione

C. Bruna Mancini — 2024-06-24

How the (Un)Dead Became Modern: Supernatural Parodies of Modernity

Patricia García — 2024-06-24

This article focuses on nineteenth-century supernatural short fiction and its intersections with the urban in the European modern context. Through readings of texts by John Hollingshead, Charles Dickens and Flor O’Squarr, among others, this research addresses a form of the urban fantastic that employs satire and parody to reflect on the modern city project. In my analysis I compare different characters belonging to the ghost story tradition but whose traits relate to the discourses on progress and on being “a modern citizen”. As I aim to show, character construction, and how character relates to the urban context, underscores the question of what it is to be a modern ghost and, implicitly, what makes a successful (or failed) “modern” supernatural story.

From Borderline to Borderland. Old Devices in New Narratives

Nicoletta Vallorani — 2024-06-24

I want to reflect on margins and marginality focusing on the ways in which, approximately from the 1990s onward (Bennett et al. 2005, 4), the very notion of border has been changing over time. What used to be a line to be crossed to reach safety or freedom or a kind of protection, has gradually widened and become an extended area whose nature challenges the traditional organization of maps in which discrete sovereign territories are by lines and marked by different colors. I am focusing on this specific transformation, that in fact produces a strong impact on the migration journey and articulates the space/time in between the departure from one’s own motherland and his/her final destination – often a mirage rather than a real possibility. Borders increasingly appear as complex composites not only when they are extended in space – as happens in the case of Mediterranean crossings – but also when they expand in the “time of waiting” spent in refugee camps or other carcereal locations.
I am considering recent artistic representations and forms of artivism, all of them focusing on the Mediterranean area as to see how new maps of the margins are drawn. Chris Cleave (2008), Morgan Knibbe (2015), Mario Badagliacca (2016-ongoing), Valeria Luiselli (2017), as well as the artists working at the Trojan Women Project seem to pursue the idea that to renew their gaze on the enormous tragedy of migration, we need new tools, more dynamic strategies to see how, following the progress of globalization, borders change their nature, and the migrant journey to cross them much more complex.

Remaking Meaning Across Modes: Marginality and Transduction in the Verbal and Visual Construction of Migration

Tania Zulli — 2024-06-24

This paper considers the linguistic and multimodal strategies adopted to describe the theme of migration in both textual and visual representations, by drawing on the theoretical notion of transduction (Kress 2010). The transition from one semiotic mode to another is analyzed with reference to the representation of mass migrations in J. Conrad’s short story “Amy Foster” and J. Lawrence’s The Migration Series, in order to shed light on the meaning-making process emerging from this modal shift. The combination of linguistic and visual structures in specific socio-historical contexts makes the “transmodal redesign” (Mavers 2011) a semiotic relocation in which the past travels into the present. However, the shift is not only temporal; the reshaping of meaning also arises in a space made up of multiple semiotic intersections, appropriations, and entanglements (Newfield 2014) which generate, in turn, new meanings. As a consequence, the transmodal moment becomes itself a moment of cross-over, an in-between, so that the discourse on marginality does not only refer to the crossing of geographical boundaries or to the individual dislocation experienced by the migrant, but also concerns textual, multimodal, and semiotic transitions.

On the Margins of the Manthropocene: Semiotic Violence against Women in Politics as a form of Diamesic Creativity

Giuseppe Balirano — 2024-06-24

This paper aims to shed light on the impact of 'semiotic violence' on women in politics, emphasizing the importance of using language as a catalyst for positive social change in order to fight gender-based violence in all its manifestations. The study specifically investigates the role of the Manthropocene in perpetuating 'semiotic violence’ against women in politics, with a specific focus on the recent international media use of sexist language when addressing Finland’s first female Prime Minister, Sanna Mirella Marin. The analysis examines how gendered insults, slurs, and derogatory communication techniques are employed to undermine the political authority of the politician, thereby perpetuating discrimination and violence. Given this context, I argue that collective societal action is necessary to challenge and reject sexist attitudes and behaviours, including those facilitated through 'diamesic creativity'.

Changing Maps: Cyberspace, Global Culture and the Interconnected Wor(l)ds of Geoff Ryman’s 253

Lucia Esposito — 2024-06-24

The article focuses on the increasingly large and interconnected expanse of cyberspace, which is denoted by such a plurality of sites of cultural exchange and sharing between individuals and communities that it eludes mapping. Electronic literature, and in particular hypertext, with its malleability, interactivity, connectedness, indeterminacy, erosion of boundaries between nations, human and machine, public and private, seems best suited to making sense of our technologically textured and globalised reality. In this light, Geoff Ryman’s 253 is analysed as an experimental example of hypertextual and global narration; a locus where the evolving relationships between information technologies and social spaces, places and practices are staged and tested.

Crossing borders, pushing margins: Being Italian (im)migrants in the UK and Its Implications

Siria Guzzo — 2024-06-24

Until recently, relatively little explicit attention has been paid to the Italian migration to the UK, which has received less popularity in the years compared to more well-known waves of migration towards other countries, such as the US, Australia, and South America, for instance. Moreover, not much consideration has been given to a comparison among old and new waves of migration from Italy to the UK and the role paid by more recent events, such as Brexit and the pandemic. Mobility in contemporary history presents fascinating elements which deserve to be explored. Hall (2006) claims that the way we project ourselves into our cultural identities has become increasingly problematic and pulls in multiple directions, consciously shifting from one identity to another, becoming multiple people in multiple places, sometimes performing overlapping identities (Byrd Clark 2007; 2009) according to the context and social interactions with different interlocutors (Guzzo 2010). This therefore leads to a line of questioning into the complexities of self and other identification and a sense of belonging as members of a heritage community in the UK. In this paper, we will specifically discuss how post-Second World War and post-2008 Italian migrants in the UK challenge the margins of their identity(ies) through a re-conceptualisation of the term immigrant.
Our analysis begins with the presentation of preliminary data from the research project Migrant food, languages, and identities in the dawn of the post-Brexit and Covid-19 era, funded by the University of Westminster, in London, that investigates how post-2008 migrants who work in Italian food and hospitality businesses use their linguistic repertoires to construct their social identity. From the audio recordings of three dinners with post-2008 Italian migrants in London, we extracted narratives wherein participants explore their migratory trajectories, ideologies, and practices. The comparison of these migrants’ narratives with those of post-war migrants based in Bedford (Guzzo 2014) shows that these two generations of Italian migrants conceptualise their migratory experience in diverse ways, establish different types of networks and construct divergent identities.
Our paper concludes with a comparative and contrastive analysis of the discourses of post-2008 and post-war migrants, where we highlight differences and point of connections within the re-framing of the word immigrant, by focusing on the elements and factors that affect the challenge or acceptance of such term.

Lo spazio liminale tra narrativa del soprannaturale e folklore digitale

Francesco Corigliano — 2024-06-24

Il presente articolo parte esamina il concetto di spazio liminale nella narrativa del soprannaturale. Dopo una premessa sulla definizione di “spazio-soglia”, se ne propone un’analisi nei romanzi House of Leaves (2000) di Mark Z. Danielewski e Piranesi (2020) di Susanna Clarke. Il primo è un esempio di letteratura ergodica incentrato su una casa infestata non da fantasmi ma da dimensioni impossibili; nel secondo invece la soglia stessa assurge a una funzione totalizzante tramite la rappresentazione di una casa-mondo infinita. In seugito si prenderà in analisi una terza forma di spazio-soglia: il fenomeno culturale delle ‘Backrooms’, a metà tra leggenda popolare e narrazione collettiva online, che su internet e sui social ha definito un nuovo modo di intendere e fruire gli spazi liminali.
La letteratura del soprannaturale è un campo cangiante e magmatico, molto influenzato dai contesti di produzione e di ricezione. È un settore vasto, la cui concezione più ampia porta a includervi tutti quei testi che rappresentano al proprio interno, in un modo o in un altro, la realtà di qualcosa che è usualmente reputato soprannaturale o impossibile. Questa delimitazione deve necessariamente appoggiarsi all’individuazione di altre caratteristiche, quali espedienti formali o questioni tematiche, che permettano di suddividere ulteriormente una categoria altrimenti troppo ampia. Tra queste caratteristiche è utile considerare il ricorso a precise soluzioni di localizzazione spaziale: dai racconti di streghe di Plinio il giovane sino ai romanzi di Stephen King, la narrativa del soprannaturale lega gli elementi ultraterreni ad uno spazio delimitato, un luogo nel quale l’impossibile si manifesta o ha origine, la cui qualità e familiarità varia nel corso del tempo.
Il passaggio da un mondo senza soprannaturale a uno con ha un valore spesso metaforico, e la soglia tra una dimensione e l’altra assurge a simbolo delle categorie valoriali che una società adotta per capire e influenzare il mondo.
Da questa prospettiva si può apprezzare come lo “spazio liminale” abbia preso sempre più forza nella dimensione narrativa. La cultura occidentale contemporanea si confronta continuamente con gli spazi liminali, aree-soglia percepite come punto di transizione, di contatto tra mondi, materializzazioni del senso di attesa e di vuoto: le sale d’attesa, le stazioni di servizio, le fermate della metropolitana e così via. Da margine definito e chiuso, lo spazio-soglia può diventare – soprattutto nella letteratura del sovrannaturale – una dimensione a sé stante, un luogo-altro nel quale entità e concetti perdono definizione e nel quale le identità si sovrappongono. Uno scenario che può assumere connotati inquietanti, nel quale aleggia quel senso di volontà incombente che Mark Fisher individua nella modalità estetica dell’‘eerie’.
In questo articolo tenterò di dimostrare che la narrativa del soprannaturale prodotta nella società contemporanea – nella quale il senso di liminalità è sempre più comune e condiviso – tende a rappresentare la soglia come uno spazio esteso, attraversabile e abitabile. Per farlo prenderò in analisi due testi di letteratura del soprannaturale, House of Leaves (2000) di Mark Z. Danielewski e Piranesi (2020) di Susanna Clarke, e in un fenomeno culturale di internet, le ‘Backrooms’.

“Another side of the picture”: Analyzing the Outsider’s Perspective in Virginia Woolf’s A Passionate Apprentice

Serena Ammendola — 2024-06-24

The fact that the diary form includes more genres and mixes the public aspect with the private one has meant that it is considered a "minor" genre compared to the more canonical ones. Over time its alleged lack of rules and its hybrid and elusive nature has led critics to associate the diary with traditional women's literature. Women's diaries are therefore doubly marginal within the literary tradition. This marginality, however, has not prevented the diary from becoming a means of free expression and emancipation of the woman writer. A Passionate Apprentice is the collection of Virginia Stephen's youth diaries from which the author's spontaneous decision to write from the margin emerges. It is a space that Virginia herself shapes and allows her to analyze and challenge social hypocrisy and family pretensions. In an extreme rejection of Victorian society and its masculine tradition, Woolf tries not to succumb to the "cogwheels" of patriarchal power by using the diary as the personal space of an outsider. The choice to write from the margin is conscious though painful, but the author's voice becomes more convinced precisely when ‒ in pursuit of her aesthetic quest ‒ Virginia crosses new boundaries and finds her own vision as a professional writer. The first part of the paper ‒ after a brief introduction to the diary genre ‒ focuses on the 1897 diary and Virginia's creation of the fictional character of Miss Jan. The second part focuses on the 1903 diary and the observations of Victorian society and its mechanisms from a marginal perspective that allows Woolf to grasp deeper meanings.

Recensione a Patricia García, The Urban Fantastic in Nineteenth-Century European Literature: City Fissures (Palgrave MacMillan, 2021)

Francesco Corigliano — 2024-06-24

Recensione a Nadia Fusini, Maestre d’amore: Giulietta, Ofelia, Desdemona e le altre (Einaudi, 2021)

Francesco Di Perna — 2024-06-24

Recensione a Franco Moretti, Un paese lontano: cinque lezioni sulla cultura americana (Einaudi, 2019)

Virginia Pellegrini — 2024-06-24

Recensione a Sunita Sinha (ed.), Marginalized Voices in American Literature: Margins and Fringes (Atlantic, 2020)

Francesca Scaccia — 2024-06-24

Recensione a Saverio Tomaiuolo, La televisione dell’Ottocento: i vittoriani sullo schermo italiano (Mimesis, 2021)

Maria Fiorella Suozzo — 2024-06-24

The Rivers Within: An Interview with Jaydeep Sarangi

Elisabetta Marino — 2024-06-24

Poesie inedite di Jaydeep Sarangi

Jaydeep Sarangi — 2024-06-24